Great White Jumps Into Fisherman's Boat

"Well I'll be buggered!"

A fisherman got the shock of his life when a great white shark literally jumped into his boat while he was throwing a line-in off Evans Head on NSW's far north coast over the weekend.

73 year old Terry Selwood was about one kilometre off shore in his 4.5m runabout on a calm Saturday afternoon, sitting on his esky with a couple of hand lines hanging over the edge on both sides when one of the lines jumped and he thought he had a bite.

When he got up to check the line, Terry says he saw a blur out of the corner of his eye, "Just out of instinct, I threw my right arm up and this thing hit me in the forearm, spun me around and knocked my off my feet and I fell on the floor on my hands and knees and this thing was beside me," he told the ABC.

"I looked over and thought - oh, a bloody shark!"

A 2.7 metre long, 200 kilogram shark to be precise.

The veteran fisherman then got up as quick as he could and jumped up the front before calling the local marine rescue while the great white thrashed around smashing any lose items in the boat.

"Well, I'll be buggered, there's a shark in me boat!"

Mr Selwood is promising he's not telling an old wives tale, "I use a 30 pound hand line fishing ... now that thing was 400 pounds ... that's too big for me to pull in on a hand line."

With a cut arm, he was taken back to shore before marine rescue came back to tow his boat into shore with his catch on board.

"I don't think it was a big deal, the bloody thing just jumped into me boat!"